Wolfson Microelectronics has worked with Sensory, a leader in speech technologies for consumer electronics to implement Sensory's TrulyHandsfree Voice Control and audio detect front-end on Wolfson’s latest ultra-low power platforms for mobile phone audio channel processing.

The combination of leading-edge embedded software and DSP technologies claims to enable unprecedented performance for voice activation and hands-free operation of mobile devices.

Wolfson and Sensory have implemented Sensory’s TrulyHandsfree on Wolfson’s industry-leading WM5110 High Definition (HD) Audio System on a Chip (SoC), as well as on Wolfson’s WM0010 and WM0011 digital signal processor (DSP) products. The WM5110, with advanced DSP, is one of the most powerful and efficient HD Audio Processors on the market, delivering exceptional HD Audio performance to portable consumer electronics devices, including smartphones and tablet computers. The WM5110, or Wolfson’s WM0010 and WM0011 products, combined with Sensory’s TrulyHandsfree solution, delivers speed, accuracy, reliability and noise robustness in a small and low power footprint, with minimal impact to handset standby time, enabling a true ‘always on, always listening’ experience for the first time.

Advances in speech recognition technology and cloud computing have made voice user interfaces ‘must-have’ features in today’s mobile phones. However, all of these still require either a touch to activate - which can be difficult if the user has their hands full, as well as dangerous and increasingly illegal while driving - or the use of an ‘always on, always listening’ mode which risks using up the device’s battery. Now Wolfson and Sensory have created a solution for TrulyHandsfree at ultra-low power consumption.

Bill Teasley, VP of Engineering at Sensory said: “Sensory and Wolfson have created an unparalleled solution for ultra-low power high accuracy speech recognition on portable devices. Mobile phones can now include voice control, intelligent voice search and utilise voice assistants without the user having to touch the phone or wear down the battery.”

Wolfson will be showing audio demonstrations at Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, February 25th-28th, on stand 2A62, hall 2.